Kennedy brought his campaign through Pueblo just months before his death.

Many people remember his visit here, but the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, is far more clear to most.

Ray Kogovsek, a former congressman who works as a lobbyist, was a junior at Adams State University, living in a basement apartment.

“It was a cold late morning and kind of snowing in the (San Luis) Valley and I was downstairs studying for an exam,” Kogovsek recalled.

“My landlord came down and told me that I had to get upstairs and look at the TV.”

Kogovsek, 72, heard the words most Americans dreaded to hear that day, “The President has been shot.”

“We sat in the living room for a couple hours just watching the coverage,” Kogovsek said.

“After I heard that he was dead, I walked to the campus and people were like zombies. Nobody knew what to say, nobody knew what to do. All of the classes were canceled.”

Kogovsek said the president’s death changed the country.

“It took our innocence away. The change is hard for me to describe. I didn’t feel the same after it happened.”

Former City Council President Mike Occhiato was stationed at Moffett Field in the Navy in Mountain View, Calif.

“I was the duty officer at the time and received a phone call stating that we were going to increase our defense alert. They told me that the president had been injured in an assassination attempt,” Occhiato said.